Fears for safety grow as €5m fund for ghost estates untapped

RESIDENTS of ghost estates are living in fear of accidents among the debris of unfinished homes while a fund set up for urgent repair and safety works goes largely untapped.

Just €400,000 of the €5 million local government fund — 8% of the money available — has been spent on completing footpaths, installing street lights, covering holes, fencing off open sites and dealing with “immediate safety issues” as was the intention of the scheme.

A further €1.4m has been earmarked for proposed repair works but many of those have yet to be started. The fund was set up in February and the works were meant to be completed before this summer.

Seamus Boland of Irish Rural Link, which represents the interests of homeowners in the many estates left half-finished in provincial towns, said the school holidays had been particularly stressful for parents worried about letting their children out to play.

“We have people ringing us asking do we know what’s happening and one of the big complaints is where children are seen by their parents to be in danger in their own estates.”

Mr Boland said he was aware of frustration among local councilors who were also struggling to find answers as to where the hold-up lay. He said a number had tabled questions which were due for answer by management when monthly meetings resumed in September:

“One of the problems seems to be the sheer slowness of local authorities in responding to initiatives like this which raises wider questions about the way local authorities are run.

“The other main problem apparently is that a lot of local authorities have lost manpower and there seems to be logjams where, for example, the engineer who would normally make the funding application doesn’t exist.

“That’s not really an excuse. It’s small money compared to many local authority projects but would make a big difference to individual estates and I’m amazed if they couldn’t find someone to take care of the paperwork.

“It would be a tragedy if we end up having an accident happen and everyone is left wondering why the opportunity to prevent it wasn’t acted on more quickly,” he said.

The fund was set up by the previous housing minister Michael Finneran before the general election but is fully supported by his successor, Willie Penrose.

A spokesman for the minister said in a statement: “The minister is disappointed at the slow progress under the scheme and this will be discussed at the next meeting [of the National Co-ordination Committee on Unfinished Housing Developments] in September.”

The minister stressed that the fund was ring-fenced and would remain open to applications until it was fully used.

A national survey published in June this year found there were at least 43,000 homes in various states of completion.

Almost 240 estates were deemed in “urgent” need of safety works but up to last month just 17 councils had applied for funding.